Goa Khabar:<\/strong>\u00a0 Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Indian diplomat and former Union minister for Panchayati Raj said that India and Pakistan needed to sit across the table to sort out their differences. \u201cReal peace can only be achieved if discussed across the table,\u201d Aiyar said. Aiyar was speaking on the topic: \u201cMemoirs of\u00a0 a secular fundamentalist.\u201d at the ongoing, 12th<\/sup> Goa arts and literature festival at the International Centre Goa on Friday.<\/p>\n Recollecting his three years as the consul general of India in Karachi between 1978-82\u00a0 and his annual trips to Pakistan in the last 40 years, Aiyar said, \u201cThe two governments may have differences with each other, but the common people of Pakistan are extremely warm and affectionate towards India and Indians. They possibly form the largest constituency of people outside mainland India who are friendly towards India. We must leverage this goodwill.\u201d<\/p>\n Criticizing the government of India for not making any efforts work towards peace between the two nations, Aiyar said, \u201cNo attempt has been made by the present\u00a0 government to talk to the Pakistan government. No peace can be achieved without dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n Recalling some of his experiences of his diplomatic tenure in Pakistan 40 years ago, Aiyar said, \u201cI remember issuing 3,00,000 tourist visas to Pakistanis visiting India in my three year tenure. The Indian police never reported a single case of misuse of this visa.\u201d<\/p>\n Sharing his views on secularism, Aiyar said “I am as fundamental in secular outlook, as some people are fundamental about religion.\u201d<\/p>\n Aiyar rued the fact that India was increasingly becoming non-secular. \u201cThe present party in power is keen to drive home unity through uniformity and this is dangerous. We could easily become like Pakistan if we carry on with our politically driven, Hindutva agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Goa Khabar:\u00a0 Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Indian diplomat and former Union minister for Panchayati Raj said that India and Pakistan needed to sit across the table to sort out their differences. \u201cReal peace can only be achieved if discussed across the table,\u201d Aiyar said. Aiyar was speaking on the topic: \u201cMemoirs of\u00a0 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25169,"featured_media":92554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155,6],"tags":[3794],"class_list":["post-92553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-155","category-6","tag-featured"],"read":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92555,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92553\/revisions\/92555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/92554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goakhabar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goakhabar-com.preview.jikut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/16.02-2-298x300.jpg\")
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